Dentsu Webchutney penalises people who ‘score more’ in anti-AIDS advert

Digital agency Dentsu Webchutney and content site ScoopWhoop came up with a game to spread the safe sex message in India on December 1, which is observed as World Aids Day.

Available on popular content and news platform ScoopWhoop, the game was played via the charging cable of a phone, used to control an onscreen fork. Plugging into multiple charging sources, increased the odds of securing a high score.

Players who thought they were winning were then greeted with this message:

Speaking to Mumbrella, Dentsu Webchutney’s chief creative technologist Gurbaksh Singh said: “AIDS messaging has been there forever. The younger audience knows the message but it is best to constantly keep reminding them and everyone else.

“We wanted to do something that’s engaging and has a potential for positive word of mouth. Nothing better than a simple game that is easy to play yet leaves an important message.”

The premise of the game — connecting multiple sexual partners to multiple sources of power for a phone — seemed far-fetched and the use of a charging cable, a case of the idea being dictated by technology, rather than the other way around.

Responding to this critique, Singh said: “Multiple sources of power has been used just as a metaphor.

“There are various related terminologies that relate to the same. For instance: male and female plugs in electrical instruments. The cable terminal is male and the power source port is female.

“If you refer to urban dictionary, plug-in is the new slang for intercourse. We were researching on how to make the message more relatable with our audience and we had certain dots, which when connected, led to this idea.”

ScoopWhoop’s CEO and co-founder Sattvik Mishra said: “We are always trying to present information and content in a way that’s most relevant to our audience.”

Dentsu Webchutney’s chief creative officer and co-founder Sudesh Samaria added: “Youngsters don’t want to be preached on anything. Safe sex is also a topic that most people are not comfortable with.

“But it is most important and relevant. We gamified the same and showed people that they lose when they have multiple partners.”

At the time of this writing, Dentsu Webchutney had no clear idea of the number of people reached by the game, claiming that it was still ongoing.